‘Conscience is conscience, to be sure,’ said Curlydown

‘I don’t think that I’m given to be afraid,’ said Bagwax.  ’The ocean, if I know myself, would have no terrors for me;—­not if I was doing my duty.  But I should hear the ship’s sides cracking with every blast if that secret were lodged within my breast.’

‘Take another glass of port, old boy.’

Bagwax did take another glass, finishing the bottle, and continued.  ’Farewell to those smiling shores.  Farewell, Sydney, and all her charms.  Farewell to her orange groves, her blue mountains, and her rich gold-fields.’

‘Take a drop of whitewash to wind up, and then we’ll join the ladies.’  Curlydown was a strictly hospitable man, and in his own house would not appear to take amiss anything his guest might say.  But when Bagwax became too poetical over his wine, Curlydown waxed impatient.  Bagwax took his drop of whitewash, and then hurried on to the lawn to join Jemima.

‘And you really are not going to those distant parts?’

‘No,’ said Bagwax, with all that melancholy which wine and love combined with sorrow can produce.  ‘That dream is over.’

‘I am so glad.’

’Why should you be glad?  Why should a resolve which it almost breaks my heart to make be a source of joy to you?’

‘Of course you would have nothing to regret at leaving, Mr. Bagwax.’

’Very much,—­if I were going for ever.  No;—­I could never do that, unless I were to take some dear one with me.  But, as I said, that dream is over.  It has ever been my desire to see foreign climes, and the chance so seldom comes in a man’s way.’

‘You’ve been to Ostend, I know, Mr. Bagwax.’

‘Oh yes, and to Boulogne,’ said Bagwax, proudly.  ’But the desire of travel grows with the thing it feeds on.  I long to overcome great distances,—­to feel that I have put illimitable space behind me.  To set my foot on shores divided from these by the thickness of all the earth would give me a sense of grandeur which I—­which,—­which,—­would be magnificent.’

‘I suppose that is natural in a man.’

‘In some men,’ said Bagwax, not liking to be told that his heroic instincts were shared by all his brethren.

’But women, of course, think of the dangers.  Suppose you were to be cast away!’

’What matter?  With a father of a family of course it would be different.  But a lone man should never think of such things.’  Jemima shook her head and walked silently by his side.  ’If I had some dear one who cared for me I suppose it would be different with me.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jemima.  ’Gentlemen like to amuse themselves sometimes, but it doesn’t often go very deep.’

‘Things always go deep with me,’ said Bagwax.  ’I panted for that journey to the Antipodes;—­panted for it!  Now that it is over, perhaps some day I may tell you under what circumstances it has been relinquished.  In the meantime my mind passes to other things; or perhaps I should say my heart—­Jemima!’ Then Bagwax stopped on the path.